Three generations of one Overland Park family, out enjoying a sightseeing trip to explore the matriarch’s hometown. A teenage driver who allegedly fell asleep behind the wheel. A fatal crash, turning an afternoon outing into a tragedy that’s left a family in mourning.
For Susan Moffett Barrick, who now lives in California, getting the news of the June 10 crash is a searing memory. An Overland Park native, she frequently traveled back home to Kansas to care for her father, Roger Moffett, who died from complications from Parkinson’s disease last October. Barrick felt like she was just coming to grips with his death when this calamity struck.
“It was like a meteor came down,” Barrick told The Star.
Barrick and her husband Chuck Barrick sat in the living room of her childhood home one overcast morning in late September, telling their story. A cardboard photo of Barrick’s mother, Patricia Moffett, stood between them. Her mother’s baby grand piano, purchased with bonds her grandparents left her for college, sat just five feet away, with a music book still propped open on top.